Artist's Cereal-Box Stunt Makes a Real Point About Sugary Cereals

On the heels of a restaurant serving diners on Sadaam Hussein's plates comes another clever stunt. This time it's on cereal boxes. If you live in the Los Angeles area and happen to be perusing the cereal aisle at the Venice location of mega-supermarket Ralph's, you may find yourself confused. Gawker reports the manufacturer's boxes have been replaced with contemporary artist Ron English's "popaganda".

The packages have been rebranded, giving their names and slogans a satirical twist: "Sugar Frosted Fat," "Fruit Looped," and "Sugar Diabetic Bear." The controversial artist is famous for hijacking and twisting pop culture icons and advertising brands for his surreal pop art. Case in point: His fattened-up Ronald McDonald was featured in Morgan Spurlock's fast-food documentary, Super Size Me.

But his attack on the products isn't falling on deaf ears. The Wall Street Journal reported that General Mills is vigorously attempting to reformulate its cereals to reduce the sugar content. According to the article, Lucky Charms currently contains 15 grams of sugar per serving, and the company's goal is to reduce sugar content to under 10 grams a serving. However, reducing sugar poses certain challenges: "Not only do the cereal's frosted oats need to taste sweet enough to keep kids clamoring, they have to float in milk for at least three minutes," states the article. All the fun of eating Lucky Charms would be gone if we couldn't see the little shamrocks floating in milk, right?

Hopefully General Mills will find a way to slim down the sweet stuff and satisfy our need for seeing our food defy gravity. Until then, do you support English's truth in advertising stunt?

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